Pte 57836 John Smart

• Age: 20
• From: Sunderland
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: St Martin Calvaire Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: I.A.3

John Smart was born on the 02nd March 1897 in Sunderland, the son of James William Smart and his wife Jane (née Quinn), who married in 1895. John was baptised on the 11th April 1897 in Southwick, Durham.

The 1901 Census shows the family living at 36 Colliery Square, Sunderland. His father, James, is aged 35, born in Boyhope, Durham in 1866, his occupation is recorded as a coal miner engine plain man, whilst his mother, Jane is aged 23, born in 1878 in Washington, Durham.  James William aged 6, born 1895, John aged 4, born 1897 and Margaret aged 2, born 1899. 

His father James died in 1907, aged 40 but 2 more children were born, probably with Thomas Willis who she married in 1916. Doris died 1911 in infancy, Norman appears on the 1921 census..

The 1911 Census shows the family at 1 Howick Place Sunderland. His mother, Jane, is a widow now aged 33 and is recorded as a charwoman. She had been married for 16 years and had six children of which one died. Those children listed in the household are; James aged 16 and John aged 14, their occupation are listed for both as coal miner, pony drivers below ground, Margaret aged 12 no occupation,  Isabella aged 8, born 1903 and Mary aged 6, born 1905 are at school. Their aunt Mary Ann Wilson is also declared on the record, she is aged 56, born 1855 in Durham is a charwoman. 

His mother remarried to Thomas Willis in 1916

John enlisted in Sunderland joining the Army Cyclist Corps as Private 164 and following a transfer he was serving in the 19th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 57836 when he was killed in action on the 09th April 1917.  

Details of the action of 09th April 1917:

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

John's death was reported in the Sunderland Daily Echo on 4th June 1917.